this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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I made a FOSS physical keyboard for my Fairphone 4 (feddit.de)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

geteilt von: https://feddit.de/post/3048730

Github link: https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry

Here's a video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDb8_ld9gOQ

I've been using it for almost two years now, and I'm not going back.

It's based on a spare Blackberry Q10 keyboard and a custom Arduino-compatible board that reads the keyboard matrix and outputs it as USB HID to the phone. From the viewpoint of the phone, it's just a regular USB keyboard, so no special software is needed.

But I do use a custom virtual keyboard to have just two rows of symbols that are not natively on the keyboard, as I didn't want to add another layer of rarely used symbols that I'd have to memorize.

(On the image you can see Ubuntu with XFCE4 running on it. I chose Ubuntu because it's what was easiest to get running in a chroot jail on the phone. I'm using VNC to display the GUI. I even managed to get FEX (x86/x64 emulator) and Wine running, so it runs x86/x64 Linux and Windows apps.)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Long phone is looooooooooong.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It's a LongBerry

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm surprised that there isn't already a simple thumb keyboard with a USB-C plug at the top that you can just buy on Amazon. I would think that what you've done here would be super helpful for lots of people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I would love an foldable case with a keyboard on one side. Like a little Laptop. Would be so neat.

Edit, something like this:

iPhone_5_Keyboard_Case-e1403108526375

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

That looks absolutely perfect! Man I miss real keyboards on phones

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The only thing on the market that kinda resembles this is the keyboard for the Pinephone. I've been considering hacking one of these and making them compatible with other phones.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Do you know if Linux is installable on any phone that can be unlocked? Last time I tried Linux on a phone was Ubuntu touch on a nexus 4.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Kinda, yes and no, depinding on what you mean.

Native desktop Linux on bare metal, that's not possible, afaik. At least I have never seen anyone do that, so I don't think that's possible. Only very specific phones that are designed for this (e.g. the Pinephone) can do this.

Specialized phone Linux distros like Ubuntu Touch or PostmarketOS can be installed on any phone that someone ported the OS to. This is by far not every phone, but there are some phones where that is possible.

Running a real desktop Linux in a chroot jail is something every rooted phone is able to do. Here, the phone's regular Linux kernel is used to run the userland of the desktop Linux in a separated file system. From the user's viewpoint this is real Linux, but the Kernel that is used is the Android kernel. Also, the whole Android userland is running at the same time. This means, you can e.g. see (and kill) Linux processes from Android and vice versa. You can access the UI of the chrooted Linux using either a VNC or an X11 app, and the CLI either over SSH or directly over a command from the Android CLI.

The last option is using e.g. Termux to run a desktop Linux in a proot jail. This works similar to chroot, but doesn't require root. The downsides are that you don't have root inside the desktop Linux and afaik it only works until Android 11. Otherwise you get similar results as with chroot, only slower and without requireing root.

I went with the chroot option, which works great. I even managed to get FEX (an x86/x64 emulator) to run, which, together with Wine even allows me to run Windows programs on my phone (slowly).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Termux used to rock but nowdays installing stuff is very hit or miss.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

this is co cool